


The afflicted's gift.

by Mourningstar (skinsuit)



Category: Fantasy - Fandom, Original Work, autism spectrum - Fandom
Genre: Autism, Autism Spectrum, F/M, Fantasy, For afflicted read autism, Gen, Multi, Original work - Freeform, autistic OCs, fantasy fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2019-09-30 16:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinsuit/pseuds/Mourningstar
Summary: A world were magic is gift of the afflicted, the eccentric, the mad, the feebleminded and the dumb, for that read autistic. The 'feebleminded' are executed for doing 'feral magic' and Dolores Long appears to all outside her household to be  a dumb, feebleminded mute. She can't will her mouth to speak or her body to do things even a small child can do. But through magic her genius was revealed, sadly that same magic gets her sent to the gallows. Her younger and more 'normal ' sister Hypatia can only weep. What Hypatia doesn't know is that Dolly's hanging is just the beginning of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: by afflicted I mean of course they are all autistic. Yep, only autistic people can do MAGIC here! Because of our extra synapses.

When they took Dolores Long or Dolly to the gallows, she walked at a shuffle, her blonde hair a limp rat’s rest under her cap, her eyes dull, her mouth slightly open. The bailiffs thought it was lucky, after all she was feral witch, her magic plus her savage attacks on all and sundry usually made her very hard to manage. She had the afflicted’s gift of magic. The townspeople had gathered at the foot of the gallows to watch. Any use of magic by the untrained merited a death sentence. The real scandal however was that her sister Hypatia , her only living family member hadn’t come. They shook their heads and whispered. It was right to hang poor Dolores, her magical gifts combined with dumb, feral brain could only result in more suffering, it was better this way, kinder. but so sad it had come to this, Hypatia and Dolores were the last of that great magical family the Longs.   
A few miles away Hypatia was sitting in bed, the ritual candles burning on her night stand and dresser, the ritual tea had been drunk. Hypatia’s eyes were closed but tears still ran down her cheeks. Hypatia was sitting in bed and she wasn’t there. She was flying outside her body, high above in the sky with her sister Dolly.

Dolly’s spirit, the real Dolly was wheeling and circling laughing with unrestrained joy. Hypatia just watched floating, and weeping.

Dolly stopped flew up to her and smiled gently. “Oh sister, you mustn’t weep for me. For the first time I am free from the chains of that body and the world.”

“I can’t stop,” Hypatia confessed. “I don’t think I’m crying for you, I’m crying for me. You taught me so much, and I love you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see you again.”

 

Dolly shook her head. “I am still here, just not in that brain, that never did what I wanted, just not in body which fouled itself and never I never could command to clean properly. I will be in the sky, in the clouds, in the air and ether. I love you and we will see each other again.”

Hypatia still wept, but she embraced her sister’s spirit. Below they saw the rope placed around Dolly’s body, and soon the trap dropped, Dolly’s neck snapped and body jerked. Dolly, the real Dolly in the clouds gave a start, but remained. Hypatia couldn’t help it, she sobbed and wailed, closing her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

She felt a gentle pressure on her left shoulder, and a fluttery soft sensation of hair against her skin, it was Dolly, laying her head against Hypatia’s shoulder as she had done so many times before. She felt Dolly’s ghostly fingers on her collar bone, softly tapping. Hypatia sniffled, smiling wanly she pressed her head against the phantom body of her sister. Since Hypatia was currently in her body she could not, see Dolly or hear her but she felt her. Hypatia fell asleep again, and dreamt deeply of her lost family, together and happy. How she wanted to stay in that dream, to sleep for days, but there was no way Hypatia could stop time, and a loud knocking at the door woke her once more. 

“Mistress Pat! Mistress Pat!” Called the voice of her housekeeper, Betty form outside the door. “There is a visitor, who says he must speak to you!”

Hypatia groaned and shouted at the door: “Tell him, I’m not receiving callers!”

“He’s from your uncle Philiscus, your trustee, you have to receive him!”

Hypatia groaned wearily and muttered the spell to unlatch the door. “You can come in Betty.”

Betty entered, she was a thin, bespectacled, wiry woman, with thick curling grey hair under her mop cap. She wore a dress of olive green and over it a white apron. 

Hypatia reached to her left side, but Dolly’s presence was gone, she moaned softly. Betty was putting her hand on Hypatia’s head, running her fingers through her dark blonde hair. 

“Oh Mistress Pat, we lost Dolly today. I went, and could hardly see the gallows for the tears in my eyes. All of us in this house want time to mourn and bury our dear Dolly,” Betty said, cradling Hypatia’s face in her hand. “It seems it ’twas just yesterday that you were but little girls, sneaking sweets, and your Father at his desk, your Mother at her loom.”

Betty broke off to cry and press Hypatia to her. They hugged and cried for a little while, then Betty gently got off the bed and went to the heavy dark wooden dresser. “Oh, you’re uncle’s man is here, what will be become of us? I hope that servant who is sat at my kitchen table picking his teeth with a knife, can tell us the reason, You’re uncle abandoned his goddaughter to be executed!”

Hypatia found the nightstand and poured out water from the basin. She washed the tears from her face and began to unbraid her dark blonde hair. Betty was laying out a plain black dress with the best white lace collar, cuffs and cap. The lace collars and cuff had been her mother’s as was the dress, it smelled of camphor, cedar and dust, it had been adjusted for Hypatia, but not worn since Father died. She was dressed, and her hair was done in between she ate a piece of toasted bread which Betty and given her. 

“Thank you. Betty,” Hypatia said quietly. “without you and Mrs. Watson, our family would be helpless and diminished.”

“It’s just what I’m supposed to do, Mistress Pat,” Betty said with a soft smile.

Finally they were ready to leave the room. Betty went down the stairs first and Hypatia, waited, a cold fear in her belly, then she smelled Dolly’s scent, and felt her sister’s hand in hers. Together, hand in hand they walked down the stairs. 

Uncle Philiscus’s manservant sat at the worn wooden table, in the kitchen, his boots resting on the tabletop. Mrs. Watson, round and sweet, Dolores’s nurse sat across the room from him, glaring at him and knitting. The man servant was picking his teeth with a small knife, his clothes were mud stained and travel worn. His hair a sandy blond, short and greasy. He leered at Hypatia with his sunken green eyes and smirked, he had a unwashed miasma about him. Hypatia felt Dolly’s grip on her hand tighten, she could almost feel Dolly’s nails digging into palm.

“Wainthrope, at yer service Miss.” He said his teeth were big and yellow, his eyes hungry as a starved dog.

“Take your boots off the table, and treat my house with some respect.” Hypatia said.

He smirked but did so. “I’m sorry miss, tell your maid that when a man travels as far as I’ve come, he expects a small beer and something to eat fer his trouble.”

Hypatia glowered at him. “My uncle’s letter, if you please, Wainthrope. Then I’ll see to it you are fed, impudent cur.”

Wainthrope lowered his greedy eyes and took a letter from inside his coat, and laid it on the table. Hypatia grabbed it and saw it bore the blue wax and seals of her uncle.

Now she could feel her sisters hand on her shoulder tight as a vice and almost swore she could hear Dolly’s anxious muttering. 

“Leave,” Hypatia ordered.

“You said I could eat,” Wainthrope protested. 

“I’ll have my housekeeper take you something outside our gate.” Hypatia said firmly.

 

Waintrope got up muttering something foul under his breath. 

“My sister died today, cur, you have some pluck to come here and act this way.” Hypatia growled.

Wainthrope turned back for moment. He smiled toothily said: “I know.”

Hypatia opened her mouth to shout at him.  
He turned back and walked out the door, the stink left with him. When he was out of sight and ear shot, Hypatia sagged, Dolly’s nervous ghostly touch was gone. 

“Betty, please take him out a heel of stale bread, a mug of small beer, the chipped mug and the smallest greenest sausage we have.”

Betty nodded. “Aye.”  
And set to work.

Mrs. Watson chuckled.

Hypatia caught herself smiling. She ran her thumb over her uncle’s seals.

“Now I shall read the letter uncle sent.” She said and left the kitchen. Dolly did not leave with her. 

She went into their old sitting room, mother’s loom was covered with dust, where mother wove her spells with common thread, father’s dark wooden desk, also dusty and unused since his death five years ago. Hypatia popped open a drawer and removed a silver bodkin, with it saying the words of the spell she opened the letter, the bodkin glowed as it ripped through the seals, one was her uncle’s sigil a cat rampant, then the other two which were magical sigils cast in wax to protect the contents of the letter. The letter, was blank, not a even a inkblot. Hypatia felt her temper swell for moment, then realized, it was enchanted. She opened a another drawer, and took out a small glass bottle stopper’d with a cork, inside was a powder that shimmered blue, when shook, but was dull gray when still. Hypatia took out the stopper and removed a pinch of the powder, she dusted it over the letter. Now she could see writing, but it was scrambled into nonsense words! Of course, uncle Philiscus would write in code. She took her hand and traced a pattern in the air over the letter. The words began to unscramble on the page making sense but just for a moment. She sighed, another hitch. She traced the pattern over the letter again, and held it up to the light of a distant window. NOW she could read it! 

 

“Dear Patty,

I know my method seems dull, like non-magic folk use. But all other ways are to fraught. I do not trust the fellow that carries this letter, or anyone but you and Tom.  
Your missive reached me of Dolly’s plight. Tragically the work I am engaged in was to important for me to reply or come. I attempted to send for a fine lawyer for defend Dolly, but alas! By the time I was able to get a message to him, Lord Stedwell (your magistrate) had sentence her to hang! I loved dearest Dolly, she was the brightest flame I knew. However I cannot leave my task nor can I tell you. I recommend you come when you are able to live with myself and Tom. I will let you make the choice yourself. If you have a good, loving young man marry him. If you have a place at Fordsley sorcery college, go! I will send on your allowance, shortly. Please bury our dear Dolly with family, damn those who will try to stop it! Ye shall prevail, my goodly niece. We shall prevail!

-Your loving uncle,  
Phil.”

 

Hypatia sat thinking on the words, for a good space of time. She had no offers for her hand, what man would want a poor, half trained sorceress? There was Fitz… but he never made a offer, so she wasn’t sure. There was that time in the grove, where they kissed. but maybe his time at Fordsley had introduced him to finer ladies then her. She had no place and Fordsley herself, no one had secured one for her, since places were passed down the father’s line usually… what hope did she have? Besides Dolly was dead. No matter what Dolly’ spirit, free and godless said. She could no longer stroke her sister’s hair, listen to he breathing or share the games they’d play. She’d never hear her voice in the bodied realm again. Though Dolly didn’t talk, exactly, but hearing her made Hypatia feel safe. Never again. 

Mrs. Watson cautiously entered the room. 

“Excuse me Miss,” She said in her soft soothing voice. “Betty’s husband and sons, have Dolly’s poor corpse with them. what should we tell them?”

 

Hypatia bit back her tears and summoned all her strength. “Thank them for retrieving her, before the riffraff could mar her. Tell them to bring her to great room. we are going to lay her out, and give her a proper burial.”

Mrs. Watson smiled. “Ah, Miss, that’s so wonderful of you.”

Seeing Dolly’s poor body with it’s broken neck and the mark of the noose was terrible, but she could still feel her sister’s spirit by her, holding her hand. They cleaned Dolores’s body, washed it, clothed it, combed out her long light blonde hair. Hypatia went out and picked wildflowers, and did a small spell to weave them into a crown and placed at Dolores’s brow. They laid her body out on a long table, dressed in her finest, the flowers at brow, and eyes closed. Dolores looked almost peaceful, expect for the make of the rope on neck. Hypatia didn’t leave her sister’s body. Hypatia fell asleep in chair nearby.

And suddenly…. Hypatia found herself floating in the bedroom she shared with Dolly, it was night, Mrs. Watson was sleeping in a chair nearby. And it was two months ago, like always Dolly had left her own narrow bed behind and crawled into next to Hypatia. The night was dark and still. That’s when Dolly’s head popped up, she was cocking her head to one side, as if she was straining to hear something. Hypatia saw herself stir in her sleep but not wake. Dolly’s brow furrowed and she pushed back the blanket sitting up, she turned and got out of bed. Whatever called Dolly seemed to be nearby for she followed it across the room, her white nightgown pale in the moon’s light. The door was usually latched and warded, opened under Dolly’s lightest touch. And so Dolly Long followed the thing that woke her out the bedroom door, down the steps across the room. Dolly hesitated at the front door, but also opened at the lightest touch. As if someone had tampered with lock, tampered with the protective spells. As if the thing calling in the darkness, the thing that couldn’t be smell, or seen or heard but almost felt like a insistent tug on the sleeve was outside. So Dolly just walked out the door, her bare feet getting muddy in the road. She followed this thing, this spell, that felt like a itch you can’t quite reach out of the gate to their yard. Out upon the moonlit road. So Dolly walked, no almost floated, her night gown almost translucent, her blonde hair wild, her eyes unfocused, trying to track down the source of it. She walked miles and miles, but outside the village there were a knot of men, coming back form a late night at the pub. They called to Dolly, she ignored them. But these men, didn’t like that. They got in her path, they jeered, leered and grabbed. Dolly’s eyes grew focused. She growled, and snarled and screeched. She kicked, punched, bit and clawed at the men. The men laughed and grabbed her holding her fast even as he struggled, their motives dark as the night is long. They did not hear Dolly mutter or see she eyes burn with blue light, but they felt it. As force she generated knocked them off their feet. They felt it as blue flame set their clothes burning and invisible forces pushed them away. They yelled and brawled trying to reach her. One them had run off…. But he came back with the bailiff and a some lowly warlock Barlow, who broke Dolly’s bubble of force. Soon James Tallyworth, lord Stedwell himself was there on horseback, looking stern and dismayed. 

With jolt, Hypatia woke up. Dolly lay in state beside her and questions filled her. Who had lured Dolly out of the house with a spell? Who had broken the locks and magical protections on the doors? For many nights after that everyone in the household had been wracked with guilt and blame. But all this time it was outsider? What would they have to game luring out the strange daughter of a simple country sorcerer? Hypatia puzzled over this as she went through the rest of her day, breaking her fast, doing simple spells and chores, waiting for someone, anyone to come to view the body.  
She could feel Dolly’s spirit nearby like a ghost of a whisper.  
‘I’m being torn away,” Dolly said. I’m getting pulled away from the mortal realm. It must because I am dead.”

“Well, the Gods must have their due,” Hypatia said with a sigh.

“But I don’t want to go, sister….” Dolly said he voice fading away

“Oh, sister dear, you shan’t,” Hypatia said, pulling a pair f pearl handled scissors from her belt, and clipping a lock of hair from Dolly’s body.

“....-ank you,” Dolly a sweet whisper in her ear and a slight touch on her head.

Hypatia didn’t know the spell to tether Dolly to their mortal realm but keeping small piece of her would help. Hypatia tied the lock of Dolly’s yellow hair off with a red ribbon and stowed in a pocket in her dress.


	3. Chapter 3

She could feel Dolly’s spirit nearby like a ghost of a whisper.   
‘I’m being torn away,” Dolly said to her in her mind.” I’m getting pulled away from the mortal realm. It must because I am dead.”

“Well, the Gods must have their due,” Hypatia said with a sigh.

“But I don’t want to go, sister….” Dolly said he voice fading away

“Oh, sister dear, you shan’t,” Hypatia said, pulling a pair of pearl handled scissors from her belt, and clipping a lock of hair from Dolly’s body.

“.thank you,” Dolly a sweet whisper in her ear and a slight touch on her head.

Hypatia didn’t know the spell to tether Dolly to their mortal realm but keeping small piece of her would help. Hypatia tied the lock of Dolly’s yellow hair off with a red ribbon and stowed in a pocket in her dress. 

Hypatia didn’t know the spell to tether Dolly to their mortal realm but keeping small piece of her would help. Hypatia tied the lock of Dolly’s yellow hair off with a red ribbon and stowed in a pocket in her dress. 

No one came to view the body, not even Fitz, though she’d heard he was back from Fordsley. So she made arrangements to bury Dolly’s body.

They had the funeral the next day, no one said anything, and they averted their eyes as Betty’s sons, shouldered the wooden bier through town to the cemetery on the temple’s grounds. The priest who buried Dolly, had come from the next town over, he’d once been a friend of her father, but hadn’t been in touch since, their mother died. He at least had the good sense to look sheepish. The servants wept throughout the ceremony, Hypatia didn’t because she had the lock of Dolly’s hair. Not even when they put in her ground next to Mother, Father and the three little ones they’d lost before their fifth birthday. On the edge of the temple’s yard by the gate was a steady bay horse with a white star on it’s forelock, that was Fitzarthur’s horse: Benet. Standing beside Benet in long dark blue traveling cloak and tricorn hat was Fitz himself. Hypatia felt emotions smiling inside of her: rage, sadness and hope. They had all played together, because they were the only gentle children who could do any magic. And once they were an age, Hypatia and Fitzarthur began courting, it was a shy and informal courtship. Then he’d had a place at Fordsley College and Hypatia didn’t yet. The he went away and Dolly….. 

was hanged.

That’s when Hypatia felt the rage well up inside of her hot and forceful. How dare he, How dare he cast her and her sister aside! As the shovels of dirt hit the coffin, Hypatia tore away from the group, marched across the cemetery through the gate. She walked right up Fitzarthur, tall, and thin with his blue eyes and black tumbling curls. And she slapped him hard across the cheek. He yelp, clutched his face and stumbled back. 

“What was that for?!” He squealed.

“You know what it’s for!” Hypatia retorted and turned away from him, arms folded across her chest.

There was a pause.

“Oh, yes, I do.” He said his voice quiet and sad. “Patti, she was my friend and I cared about her. I came didn’t I?”

Hypatia rounded on him. “You didn’t stop your brother from hanging her! You didn’t fight for her! You didn’t write, you didn’t even come to her wake! This is how you treat your friends, Mr. Tallyworth!”

His face was white with a cold anger. He began pacing furiously, his gloved hands twitching and sparking.“I know! I know! I am a horrid beast! Jemmy has never been a friend of magic, he’s always been jealous of what we can do, and since he married that woman Winifred, it’s gotten worse! I wrote him to form Fordsley, IMPLORING HIM to spare her for my sake, but he had the pluck to REBUKE ME, his own brother! I tried to ride out to stop it, but a storm came up so I was delayed! By the time I got here it was to late! I came here soon as dared slip away form Jemmy and his shrew of a wife!” He paused a red spark flew from his fingertips and hit a leaf on a nearby tree, causing it burn up. “I deserve all your rage, all your scorn, I am a vile and weak thing.”

He looked away, his anger burning away into sadness, his eyes tearing up. 

Hypatia thought of when they children, sneaking off from their minders to play in nearby wood, how quickly they learned to speak through magic, how Dolores always knew more but gamely taught them. The games and fun they had, how easy it had been. How Fitz had been the silly, sweet contrary one. She thought of later just last summer that her and Fitz had snuck off to that wood, hold hands and exchange sentiments. And she felt sympathy for him and a pang of longing. But showing him any sign of it would acknowledging her own weakness, that she was changeable and irresolute. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t betray her own heart. So she took his hand, held it as it twitched and trembled. He glanced down at her touch.

“Fitz, look at me,” She said. “I know you are, I know you have a stout and true heart. You are no vile, weak creature. But you should have tried harder, we all should have. We have lost her to this world.”

He looked at her with his blue eyes filled with tears, he looked down. “I should have done more,” He withdrew his hand, he stepped back from her.

“Fitz, no don’t do this,” Hypatia implored.

“I-I am going back to Fordsley, “ He said taking the reins of his horse. “Before I do I have something for you.”

He withdrew a letter from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Here, Miss Long, this from the Dean of Rosemund college, it’s your acceptance to Fordsley.”

He got on his horse and and rode away.


	4. Chapter 4

She went back to the funeral, feeling empty, lost and sad, not just for her sister, but for the loss of a friend and lover.

Hypatia spent a fortnight getting ready for her trip to Fordsley, her clothes, toiletries and sundries where packed, but she was trouble deciding which grimoires to pack. There were mother’s women’s magic spells and rituals of protection, healing, encryption, nature, warp and weft, soothing and mending: women’s magic. There were her father’s offensive spells, spells of flight, and transformation men’s magic. There were also grimoires for those rituals, spells and invocations that fell in between and things she knew already that had not been set down. Hypatia was wondering what she should do, she could feel Dolly nearby running her fingers over the spines of the books. Despite not having a voice, and not being able to dress herself, Dolly could read, write and use hand signals to communicate in life. Much like their famous Ancestress Catherine the mute… though they were descended from her youngest son’s youngest son…

Hypatia’s mind wandered, until Betty came in bearing a neatly folded note.   
“I’m busy,” Hypatia said attempting to get back to the problem in hand.

“Patti, it’s form Lady Stedwell, she wishes you to call on her,” Betty said.

“Then I’m doubly so, I don’t wish to see that wretched woman or husband,” Hypatia grumbled.

Betty sighed: “Ms. Patti, I think you have too, for form’s sake.”

“Why in the name of Mother Night, do I have to that? She has rained misfortune on me and my family.” Hypatia said making a hand gesture to dismiss her housekeeper.

“I understand, but it’s thing that has to be done, think of Mr. Tallyworth, think of your father.” Betty sighed. “You have to keep on good terms with these people.”

Hypatia bit her lip and clenched her fist. “FINE! I WILL,BUT THIS WHOLE THING IS NONSENSE!” She stomped her foot.

Betsy tsked, and got her cup of tea to calm Hypatia. Hypatia drank it and dressed. She wore black, to show that was mourning Dolly, and added to that she best bonnet which she conspicuously trimmed with black. After she had dressed, she set her face in a hard expression and left the sky outside was blanketed in light grey clouds, but through them the sun hung in the sky like a silver coin. But she could feel Dolly with her, walking along beside her. The familiar roads of the town seemed muddier, and she loathed setting foot on the well tread path to Stedwell Hall, where as children, She, Dolly and Fitz had spent many happy hours playing. Their parents had been friends, but both sets of parents were now dead. Ftiz’s elder brother James had inherited the title and even as a child, he’d never been exactly a friend. Once Dolly had discovered a spell that turned the three friends into rabbits or mostly rabbits and they had spent a summer twilight frolicking in a raspberry bush and eating the berries. James, who hadn’t been able to play such games, found her, Dolly and Fitz in this half transformed state, and run away eyes wide with horror. Of course by the time he brought the Nanny, they’d all become fully human again, even though they were all punished for the rips and tears to their clothes. She smiled and giggled a little at the memory. She whispered it to Dolly, who nuzzled her shoulder affectionately.   
As she grew closer to the gate of Stedwell hall she felt Dolly getting fainter and fainter. Hypatia clutched at the lock of hair tied off with a ribbon but soon there was nothing, as if Dolly had stopped halfway down the path. The gate was never closed, Hypatia took a breath and went through them. Stedwell Hall was a respectable manse made of light brown stone, it was four stories and enormous, but to Hypatia it was as familiar as well worn slipper. A footman answered the door for her, he did not speak but took her cloak. The footman, Charles who she knew form the village, didn’t so much as glance at her or say word, it was for the best as she felt anger inside of her like hot coals in her belly. Any word form Charles and she would unleash it. Hypatia knew that speaking ill, to the Stedwells’ or their servants would cost her. Charles lead her to the small drawing room, which was decorated in newer style of white, gold, and light blue. In one of the light blue chairs sat James Tallyworth, Lord Stedwell. He had the same blue eyes as Fitzarthur, but he was shorter, stockier and his hair was a light brown. He was in day outfit, of browns and reds nothing special but the fabrics and cut indicted it would be far more than she could afford. He looked over to her and said in tone of mawkish pity:

“Ms. Long, I am so very sorry that we meet again under these circumstances.”

Hypatia looked away from him, she had been taught better but she could see the familiar lines of that FACE and say anything that would not come off as rude or angry.   
“Are you?” She ventured, looking over and behind him to a portrait on the wall of his grandfather, maybe his great grandfather, she didn’t know but it was dead ancestor with a ruff and a beard. 

“Yes, it couldn’t be helped, you understand Dolores— your sister, hurt those men, and could have killed them,” He continued. “It was my fault, I knew she could do magic and she was feeble minded—”

Hypatia realized she must have been scowling, when she saw him pause in his speech. She worked very hard to keep her tone even. “…yes?”

“—well not feebleminded, dumb?” He hazarded. “Anyhow, you understand I couldn’t look the other way this time, in this case. I’m the magistrate of this village and I had to act. It isn’t fair the creator gave the gift of magic to the afflicted, those who are eccentric, mad, dumb and feeble-minded.” 

Hypatia looked down and clenched her fists, she could feel a charge building inside of her, but she had to keep civil, keep calm, she breathed deeply and thought of Mother night, thought of her parents. 

That’s when Lady Stedwell came in, Winnifred Stedwell was a woman of three and twenty, her auburn hair, peeking out from under a lace bonnet, her eyes were small, bugling and close set, her nose long and pointed, her top lip was to thin and bottom one wide and thin. She had long reedy neck like a heron. But worse of all she always looked so impeccably smug and superior. Maybe it was her title, maybe it was the fine clothes she wore and maybe it was because she was nearly six months pregnant.   
She grinned like a weasel when she saw Hypatia: 

“Oh Ms. Long, it is SO nice to see you! La, tis so BRAVE of you to wear that!” 

“How so? I’m mourning my sister,” Hypatia asked half earnestly the charge was still building.

“Hmmm, well one does have to follow convention doesn’t one?” Said Lady Stedwell in an evil tone.

“But I loved my sister,” Hypatia said trying to keep the harshness out of her voice.

“Considering how she died, it might be seen as indelicate,” Lady Stedwell added. “And I can’t see how one would get suitors looking like a black clad beldamn?”

“Suitors?” Hypatia was surprised by this. “Whatever do you mean, I’m not looking for suitors.”

“Considering your situation you should be dear,” Lady Stedwell added with a smirk. “I know you placed some hope in my brother-in-law but he is at Fordsley now surrounded by the most accomplished of sorceress.Perhaps it would be wise to look elsewhere, I mean you don’t want to be a spinster living on a meager allowance, do you?”

 

Hypatia felt something in her deflate, yes she had placed hope in Fitz and Lady Stedwell was probably right, then she recalled the letter Fitz had given her. 

“Tis a good thing then, Lady Stedwell that I too am going to Fordsley,” She said with grin. “I got a letter this very week securing me a place. There are many fine sorcerers there, I am told, and well, Mr. Tallyworth.”

Lady Stedwell’s complacent smirk left her face and her brow furrowed in distress. “Ah, really? Good for you, Ms. Long… Say, James isn’t that lovely?”

Lord Stedwell looked up with the same expression. “Yes, Winifred it is. “

They drank some tea and ate biscuits after that in in silence for the most part, Hypatia continued to smile to herself right out of the door of Stedwell hall. On the way home with Dolly at her side, holding her hand she’d come to decision about what grimoires to take, all of them because magic had no sex.


	5. Chapter 5

The night before the trip to Fordsley, Hypatia slept fitfully. She’d fall asleep for a few minutes, only to wake startled heart pounding, from something she could not recall. Dolly held her, and Hypatia was soothed into sleep. Hypatia dreamed, she was in a small dark cave of ice, unable to move and so cold. She was not alone there however, a low rough male voice whispered to her: “my love, my darling, you are so fair, so fine.” As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Hypatia could make out a silhouette of someone sitting in front of her. They were so cold, they were the ones speaking the endearments. 

“You look so like my dearest Cat,” said the figure in the darkness. “Someday and soon we shall be together, my darling.”

The details of this person were starting to come into focus. It was a man with thin strands of black hair trailing down his otherwise naked scalp. His lids were lowered, his nose bulbous, crooked squashed, his lips were curled back exposing enormous wide, flat yellowing teeth, on his chin was a thin patchy beard and he wore a heavy robe, that might have been white once, but now was a yellowing, graying off color. His skin was also had an off yellow-gray tinge.Suddenly Hypatia realized this was no man, whispering to her, she’d been mistaken, this was corpse! A cold dead thing!

But then the eyes of the corpse flew open, exposing empty sockets blazing, yes blazing with an eerie white blue light. Hypatia wanted to scram but not a sound came out, she couldn’t speak or move, and she was so so cold. 

“Do not be afraid Hypatia,” said the corpse its lipless mouth moving. “I will not hurt you, you have given me no reason. You are the most beautiful living thing.”

And the corpse reached its boney arm towards her, she felt one spider like yellowing finger stroke her cheek. It was so cold, so dreadful that cold skin touching her, unable to scream to unable to run or fight. Stroking her cheek, those orbs of white blue light staring at her from eyeless sockets. There was a pounding and the whole cave was shaking, someone broke through the ice, light poured in, real natural sunlight. The corpse shuddered. Dolly stood before them, alive, dressed as normal in her white cap and gray gown. Her fists glowed cobalt blue, and she shouted: “LEAVE MY SISTER BE, FIEND!”   
She muttered and a jet of cobalt blue light shot from her fists and that’s when Hypatia woke up, again, the birds were singing and the light of dawn crept through the curtains.


End file.
